


return to novac

by rumandcokebloody



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-07-25 20:33:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16205153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumandcokebloody/pseuds/rumandcokebloody
Summary: boone finds solace in the silence that the courier brings.





	1. reminders

**Author's Note:**

> this is terrible

boone stirs.

he struggles to open up his eyes against the cruel yellow glow of the lights overhead, which breathe with an artificial grit. the sofa groans under his weight as he stretches out his limbs.  
the busted up radio perched obediently on the bookshelf behind cliff strums lazily along, faint with static, it's soft quality finding it's way to boone and calmly urging him to wake. he considers sleeping in, except his shift starts soon…  
coffee brews.

the dark roasty fragrance of it fills him up, & he feels a little less heavy as a result, if only a little bit less.

he takes the calloused heel of his palm and drags it over his eyes, in hopes of pushing away the remaining traces of sleep from them, and forces himself to sit up.

a few feet in front of him, cliff leans back in an old leather swivel chair, feet tucked together by the ankles and resting on top of the counter, a few souvenirs appearing to be guarding each foot from either side.  
he holds a pre-war car magazine in his hands the way one would an infant, tenderly, and the skin on his face folds in small creases as he squints to make out words that have surely been corroded on the pages over time.  
behind him on the bookshelf, underneath a pin-up calendar, a small red light gleams from under a thin film of dirt on a button's surface, signifying that the stove is on. on top of that, a rusted metallic pitcher moans quietly with steam rising from the top, as the coffee comes close to being fully brewed.

boone reaches down and searches under the sofa, twisting his fingers into spider-legs, and snatches up his aviators from the floor. the cool metal of the frames adjusts to his skin as he slips them onto his face. he straightens his back and weighs his hands in his lap, with nothing to do, and nothing to say. he lets out a lingering yawn, his jaw crackling like firewood.

a crisp sound melts into the air as cliff turns a page, and jingle jangle fills up the gift shop with it's recognizable warmth through the grain of the radio's speakers.  
boone knows every word before it plays.  
the percolator's wailing pierces the air, and cliff grumbles to himself, clumsily takes his feet down off the counter, his boots thudding against the worn wood floors, and groans as he stands up straight, joints cracking in chronological order with every move.  
he clicks the stove off, and turns back to pour himself a cup.

the small sound of coffee being poured is gentle on the ears. it's familiar. 

cliff makes his way over to boone, holding two mugs, & hands him boone's favorite - the small one with the faint print of the state of indiana on it, and plops back into his chair, clearly content.  
boone leans back against the cushions of the couch and rests his head against the wall, gripping his mug and looking up at the ceiling. he presses his fingers tight against the hot ceramic, takes note of the stinging pain searing his skin as a result. it’s not so terrible.  
the front door creaks as a gust of wind sends dust and cool morning breeze into the gift shop, to which cliff grumpily remarks, "damnit. shit flew right into my coffee. you mind shuttin that for me?"  
almost immediately, boone uproots himself from the couch, and stumbles toward the door, careful not to spill his drink, and nudges it shut with his foot, which in turn causes the air in the room to become heavy with stagnant, sweaty heat.  
he sits back down onto the couch and sips his coffee, the heavy flavor of the percolator in which it was brewed quickly putting him at ease.

the air is thick with age; dust & rotting wood, with a hint of coffee. cliff has kept it clean all the time he's been here, and the state of the shop makes all the work he's put into it evident. it looks pretty good considering the circumstances, but there's no fighting the degradation that comes with time. the place is pretty fuckin' old by now.

boone's been doing this for about a year. the everyday routine; wake up, coffee, shift up in the mouth, silence, sleep. rinse and repeat. he realizes that it’s been about a year since he's seen the courier, too. before, he travelled with the him, all across the mojave, after he discovered the bill of sale and decided to follow him on his quest of endless wandering.  
they drifted for a long time, spilling countless amounts of legion blood. if anything, boone could probably die tomorrow the closest he'll ever be to what you would call 'happy', just knowing he did something good. for once.  
but then, out of nowhere... the courier... just...  
he feels his face contort into a grimace.  
he’d rather not think about the courier.

in short, they parted ways. that's all it was.

when boone first came “home”...back to novac, he’d completely forgotten about the feeling that came whenever he set foot in his old room. he was so busy bloodying his hands and heightening his legionnaire kill count, that when the journey had ended so abruptly, it was impossible to truly understand what he would be going back to in novac.

the air inside his motel room was so heavy. it weighed on him...made it almost impossible to breathe. this...unstable, bundle of energy...it frantically pounded from inside of his chest, desperate to escape. it was the exact same sensation that came when he was vulnerable in a firefight. it was the overwhelming and unyielding belief that he was going to die. it wasn't new to him. in fact, he normally welcomed it.  
the panic, the adrenaline, the rush...he reveled in it, in the notion that it implied, the notion that death was impending. the notion that justice would be served, after all these years.  
but in the setting of what was supposed to be his sanctuary, it was unbearable.

the sheets of their bed still retained carla’s scent, and no matter how fucking hard he scrubbed them, the smell of her would never leave. his flesh tore against the metal panes of the washboard, staining the wet fabric red with his blood.  
the thick perfume she used to wear, reminded him of the color pink. she seemed to be plaguing him there, and yet he couldn’t muster up the strength to leave, no matter how badly he wanted to.

he needed somewhere else to sleep, lest he become a full fledged insomniac. not that he already wasn't, though.

still, he had nowhere else to go. his room became his source of torment. their dresser was stuffed with her old clothes; her dresses and shirts, her magazines were scattered in the drawers. he couldn't stand it.  
her ever-looming presence hovered like a specter.  
it was suffocating.

he tried to sleep in the lobby a few times. the couch wasn’t painfully uncomfortable. but the air was. the stench made him sick, knowing that that washed out old bitch ever even exhaled a sigh in there was enough to make him feel like letting go of his lunch.

he heard the courier’s words in his head, three days after they had first met. “I found your wife’s bill of sale. Was in a safe, in the motel lobby.”  
he saw jeannie may’s hooked nose clambering just out of the frame of his scope, and remembers lining up the sight with the center of her skull…  
it seemed that no matter what he did, there would always be reminders.


	2. matter cannot be destroyed; energy is recycled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cliff & boone bond, in the most surprising of ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i loved cliff a lot, lol. im also kind of projecting onto boone, whoops :p

boone found himself asking cliff if he could have the courier's old room, and cliff apologetically told him he didn't have the key. he prepared to give cliff some shitty excuse for not wanting to stay in his old room, but cliff never asked.  
he silently thanked him for it a thousand times over.

the next morning, boone sat in the yellow velvet recliner in the corner of his room, polishing his rifle, when he heard a knock at the door. it was cliff. the man was grinning like a kid, his lips stretching practically from ear to ear.  
"took the ol sofa from the motel lobby and shoved into the gift shop for ya. fits like a damn charm, if you'd believe it. i’ve no idea myself on how i managed to do it, an old man like me, but...i figured you could use it.”  
the gratitude boone felt transcended language;  
boone just about kissed him.  
and its’s been that way ever since.

cliff would spend all his time dusting, sweeping, re-arranging and organizing the various dinosaur souvenirs in the gift shop, making sure as well as he could to keep the place looking nice, despite how run down it was, how little people visited it.  
in the morning, him and boone had a routine. cliff would make coffee, pour the two of them a cup. he would comment on the heat, or a trader he met yesterday that was selling those hard-to-come-by cigarettes that the courier would always smoke.  
boone would just listen.  
cliff seemed to enjoy the company, so much so that he would often interrupt himself just trying to tell boone a story, as though he was worried that boone was going to get up and leave right in the middle of it. boone didn’t really mind. it was similar with carla, she always found something to say. and boone had a love for words. listening to others, their ways of speaking, each individual to them, careful or uncoordinated, always fascinated him, distracted him.  
his mind when alone always wandered. he thought of, or remembered things, and felt sick all over again. people like cliff...their constant nonsense was endearing. it reminded boone that other people existed too. and their voices, filling up the space, helped keep his conscious at bay, if only for a little while.

the way boone and cliff communicate, kinda, sorta, reminds boone of how his twelve year old self used to daydream. boone would fabricate an entire universe in a minute, one of which that revolved around his father loving him.  
cliff never pitied boone, never made him feel foreign. cliff just understood, in that quiet way of his. he never indicated it through words or conversation. he just made boone coffee in the morning and gave him a place to sleep. 

boone has never known what the language of love exchanged between a father and son would look like, or feel like. but he figured that cliff was the closest thing to a father that he would ever get.  
the interactions between the two were subtle. but the affection existed.

on days where the grainy, lifeless brown of the desert beneath him looks appealing,  
days where he imagines his corpse flying downward, hands outstretched toward the sun, painting the mojave red with his guts,  
days where he stares a bit too long into the barrel of his rifle while cleaning it,  
boone thinks of cliff. 

heavy sighs, lots of coffee, & the image of cliff finding boone mangled & lying facedown in the cold dirt of the desert is always enough to make him continue forward to another day.  
despite how difficult it gets.

the sound of cliff clearing his throat separates boone from his thoughts. he takes a deep breath and stares forward, noticing the wallpaper peeling on the wall in front of him.  
it's a particular shade of off-white, the floral designs featured there distorted underneath unidentified stains.

boone finishes his coffee.

 

he plays a game of caravan with cliff and loses.  
Cliff chuckles heartily at the win. “Better luck next time, kiddo”  
boone gives him a small smile in return. “yeah.”

he re-loads his rifle while cliff re-shelves some supplies, gives it a quick clean with a greasy rag.  
cliff quietly hums blue moon to himself.

he hears manny step down the stairs and open the door, but makes sure to keep his eyes on his hands, the skin at his joints expanding with color as he grips his rifle, becoming a phantom shade.

manny and cliff exchange a "Hello there" and a "Hey", and then manny is gone.

thats his cue.

boone nods at cliff and starts up the steps toward the mouth. cliff doesn't say anything. he's awfully quiet today, isn't he?

he shuts the door softly behind him, carefully sets down his rifle against the tea table.  
he sits in the metal fold up chair in the mouth and looks out at the desert before him. it's incredible. and empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah, i hope you like it lol


	3. aching

boone's decision to switch shifts with manny was founded on the fact that his regimen had been entirely reformed during his time with the courier.  
before, he functioned nocturnally.  
rarely was he awake to see the sun fully realized, sitting in the sky, directly overhead, casting it's warmth.  
he was forever bound to the night.

the courier was a morning person.  
he insisted that as his companion, boone become one too.  
too detached to object, boone rose with the sun, just as the courier did. he never really imagined it would make as large of a difference as it did - in a strange way, he felt reborn. 

the pink glow of the faraway star that was the center of the universe, climbing upwards every morning, reinvigorated boone in the way that, as boone was entangled deep within his own suffering, he was literally, & figuratively, chained by darkness.  
seeing the sun rise everyday didn't remove the bars of his self made prison, but gave him something to hold on to.  
the rays of light seemed to gently sing to him - "some things stay, some things remain."  
they inspired a small fragment of hope.

luckily, the routine that the courier was so keen on upholding wasn't akin to that of the time boone spent serving the ncr. if it were too similar, boone would be less passive about agreeing to the courier's terms.  
anything that boone found himself associating with the ncr, he actively rejected.  
it was just easier that way. always had been.

best not to think too much. 

 

the conversation that boone came to have with manny, asking him to switch shifts, wasn't physical.  
boone awkwardly walked up to cliff’'s counter one night before his shift, and asked him to ask manny if they could switch shifts. cliff looked up from his magazine, over the ridge of his glasses, and gave him a broad smile.  
"Sure, son. Easy."  
boone could never help but return cliff's grin, always so bright and genuine. he did make sure to tone his own smile down a few notches, though. 

boone had made a promise to himself to never speak to manny again. he wondered what cliff thought about the whole thing, with him being the messenger between the two and all.  
cliff didn't mention how strange it was, much to boone's relief. still, cliff expressed his confusion with his eyes, eyebrows furling into his forehead.  
boone didn't really feel like explaining the it to him. 

 

manny lost every ounce of respect that boone once had for him the day he told him about carla's death.  
he feigned concern, without much effort. the moment boone uttered the words; "carla's dead", he could see manny's shoulders hunch forward, all tension released. a small smile had crept up at the corners of his lips. 

disgust brewed in the pit of boone's stomach as manny laid it on thick. "i am so, so, sorry boone-"  
manny had droned on for a few minutes, wasting his breath, and boone's time.  
boone knew that manny and carla disliked each other. he knew the tension was generated more from the former than the latter.  
what he didn't realize was how incredibly devoid of empathy manny was capable of, all because of a few petty disputes that had occurred between him and carla.  
it was sick. fucking sick. 

boone decided he wouldn't trust anyone so strongly again, nor put his faith in them.  
too bad he had already lost sight of that original notion.

 

time ticks, slowly...  
the sun has begun to set.  
it's weight against the mojave's horizon paints the sky as an array of colors, like a splattering against canvas. 

boredom gnaws it's way into boone, like a starving dog that's found a leftover rib cage.  
he leans over with a sigh, fiddles with the radio sitting on a small box next to him.  
all he gets are layers of static & the vague presence of a voice.  
he keeps at it, patience being his staple.

eventually, a connection. the thick grey of static remains prevalent.  
clearly, through the fuzz, he hears the rust grating in an older man's throat.  
"hello ladies and gentlemen, mr. new vegas here. you're all so great and we're gonna keep you listening all day."  
boone sits back in his chair and stares on at the desert, ears hooked to the voice gently murmuring to him out of the speakers.

boone immediately recognizes the song that begins to play as johnny guitar.  
he lets out an exaggerated groan & brings the tips of his fingers to his temples, pressing into them.  
the plucks of string laze along, while a woman sings in that somber tone, and all boone can think of is the courier.  
the courier, the courier, the courier. 

the courier was fond of music.  
so fond, in fact, that music was never missing from the space between him & boone.  
it filled the silence better than anything else ever could, so it always did.

he was so ridiculously appreciative of music, though, that it didn't matter what was on at the time, didn't matter how repetitive it got, something would always have to be on.  
the courier himself acknowledged how shitty some of the songs scheduled for re-runs were.  
"oh, this one again." he would lament, as if to himself. he'd take a swig of whiskey & continue onward, relatively un-bothered.  
it drove boone mad. 

there was one song in particular, however, that boone absolutely, positively, fucking despised.  
with each new listen, he'd find something else about it that made him hate it even more.  
wonderfully convenient for boone, the courier adored that very song.  
"play the guitar...play it again, my johnny..."  
his skull throbbed at the sound of that wench moaning about some drifter in a smoky poolroom.  
the courier thought it was romantic. jesus. 

it had been something like a whole year since boone had last seen him. the courier, that is.  
boone sits in the very spot the courier found him in, lost, staring out at the desert.  
he remembers the way the courier made no sounds when he entered the mouth, how he only identified another person had joined him there by the smell of cigarettes filling the small space.  
they were the same brand his mom used to smoke. viceroys.  
for a single moment, he imagined that it were her standing behind him. 

it was an incredibly odd coincidence that this faceless man, a courier, a drifter, a god damn nobody, found boone at the time he did.  
he stood in the doorway with that signature slim design, the red & blue wrapped cigarette hung casually from his lips. his eyes were heavy with fatigue, his hair long, tousled. he looked average for anyone doing what boone assumed that he was doing - which was what everyone did out in the mojave; surviving.  
strangely enough, boone was the first one to speak. 

now, though, a year later, with everything said and done, boone stays in novac. stays even when he could free himself of the ghost infested prison that is his old room, the one he shared with carla.  
stays even when his best friend, who sighed with satisfaction at hearing the news of his wife's death, still looms around very corner.  
stays even when the images of jeannie may's flesh sprawling like a horde of flies after being lodged with a bullet replay in his mind, every night, before he fitfully drifts away. 

all because a tiny fraction of irrational hope inside him whispers the courier's name, over and over, like a mantra. an obsession, with the idea.  
the hope that he could have a purpose again.


	4. birthday boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this sucks sorry. also if it didnt make sense boone has really bad anxiety which i guess is typically out of character for him but i like to project myself into my writing, so yeah lol.

boone's shift ends after what seems like forever, and the chill of the air settles on his skin as he goes to reach for the door.  
it's september. after the relentless heat that comes with summer, boone welcomes the cool of fall like an old friend.  
he'll be 27 in november. not that he cares. just another empty year that has absently wound by. it doesn't feel real. to boone, though, nothing really ever has felt real.

still. 2 months, and he'll be the same age his mother was when he was born. that's a bit of a strange thought.

boone mulls over the idea of telling cliff. it'd give him something new to enthuse about, after all.  
but boone doesn't know if he could handle all of the stimulation that the attention would bring him. cliff would most definitely take the information and run with it.

guess he better keep it to himself, then.

he opens the door gingerly, only to find manny awkwardly standing in the frame to greet him. boone, without a single thought, pushes past him like a stray breeze, and enters the gift shop.

cliff hunches over his desk, clinging to his notepad as he takes inventory. his wares are sprawled all across his desk, the end table behind him, the floor. some are even carefully placed on the sofa by the door. boxes of shells, cans of cram, cigarettes, stimpaks. the objects accompany him, almost like living things. he seems almost at home surrounded by the walls they create.

boone lingers by cliff's desk for a moment expectantly, waiting for cliff's usual perky acknowledgment of his presence. cliff instead retreats further into his notepad, almost rebelliously.  
hm.  
boone chooses to brush it off as he closes in on the sofa, finding a small stretch of cushion uncovered by cliff's things, and ceremoniously throws down his rifle.

he checks his watch. 9:23. he tosses cliff a curious glance. his back is to boone now, the small sounds of his pen furiously scribbling and his (agitated?) murmuring hovering in the air as he works.

boone considers asking him if something is wrong.  
he then removes the idea from his mind completely.

the room feels confined. boone can hardly stand it, the silence. his thoughts expand infinitely within a matter of minutes, the fear pounding bullet sized holes in his head as he tries to understand what it was that he did.  
blood flushes from his fingers, leaving them cold, and he stumbles down the stairs of the gift shop and into the mojave, the light of the moon hanging low overhead drenching the desert around him.  
he can almost breathe again, for a moment.

he listens to heart flutter.  
it's frantic, and weak.  
guess that it's fitting for him, then.

each inhale unclogs the mud in his lungs, the chill of the air sobering him with each breath.  
he finds himself dragging his feet up the steps to the second floor of the motel.  
he stares blankly at the courier's door, suddenly wanting to cry. he wishes that he could go inside, could see the courier sitting on the bed with his face glued to the pip boy. wishes that the courier were there to comfort him.

cliff must hate him now. he must know what boone did, must have heard that he was at bitter springs. somehow, cliff knows.  
boone feels disgusting.

he slides down against the cold wood of the door and brings his knees up, almost to his chest. he bites back the salt brimming under his aviators.  
he remembers to breathe.

 

when boone re-enters the gift shop, there's not a thing out of place.  
cliff is nowhere to be seen.

boone heaves a sigh, stiffly falls into the couch, his rifle at his feet.  
as he goes to take off his glasses, cliff appears from upstairs, a bottle of whiskey in tow.  
boone makes sure to keep his eyes on the floor as cliff goes to shut off his desk light.

click.

boone shuts his eyes, curls into the cushion so his back is to the gift shop.

cliff shuffles around a bit longer, boots thudding softly with each step, consciously trying to be quiet.  
boone listens to the swishing of liquor in cliff's bottle, the pained grunt following as it burns going down.

he hears cliff make his way to the door, and stop. boone keeps his eyelids sealed tight.  
"you remind me of him, you know."

boone holds his breath, waiting.

a long swallow ensues as cliff takes another swig. he catches his breath, his voice hitching as he speaks.  
"you remind me of my son, sometimes. the way you walk. he was there that day, you know."

cliff sniffs softly, hesitates.

"he's dead now. but my boy would have been 20 today. 20 years old! can you believe that?"

another swig. a small sob.

"he was a good kid."  
a pause.  
"no, he was a great kid. i just wanted you to know that. that you remind of him. of my son."

cliff is silent for awhile.  
the bottle clangs to the floor heavily, and cliff struggles to get to the door, managing to flick the light off in the messy process.  
"good night, boone."

finally, he's gone.

boone lays unmoving, staring into the fabric of the cushions, amazed by the amount of detail that can be discovered in the simple pattern that belongs to an old, decaying sofa.  
wet heat falls from his eyes in fat drops, hitting his fingers where they rest under him. he doesn't move to wipe them away.  
he resists, and, without success, begins to weep;  
just like when he was a little kid, the sobs radiate from his chest and ripple throughout his entire body like currents.  
soon, it's over.

he sleeps the best that night than he had in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading :-)


End file.
